Jonathan Meikle (left) and Matthew Shorting detained a man who was armed with a knife, During the altercation, Meikle was stabbed in the leg.SM

They were probably the most unlikely of Good Samaritans. But when Jonathan Meikle and Matthew Shorting found themselves on a Winnipeg Transit bus one Sunday morning in early November, they were the right men in the right place at the right time.

The pair’s tale was one of many police and crime stories that graced the pages of the Winnipeg Sun in 2018.

At shortly after midnight on Nov. 4, a knife-wielding assailant threatened to stab another passenger in the neck on a bus downtown after hurling racial slurs at him. Meikle and Shorting later told the Sun that felt they had no choice but to step in.

“He was looking for trouble and maybe to build on his street cred,” said Meikle, who needed eight staples to close a stab wound in his leg from the encounter. “He was on a mission to try to provoke somebody into a position where he could best them. If this guy got away which he was trying to do, he would have found somebody else.”

Jonathan Meikle (left) and Matthew Shorting detained a man who was armed with a knife, During the altercation, Meikle was stabbed in the leg. Winnipeg Sun/Chris ProcayloSunMedia

“It was definitely a reflex,” added Shorting, who said he was thinking about the fatal stabbing of Winnipeg Transit driver Irvine Jubal Fraser on Valentine’s Day 2017 when he intervened. “There’s that fight or flight and we went right into that fight mode.”

These are probably the two guys you would want on your side in any fight. Meikle is an Afghanistan veteran, Bear Clan Patrol member and amateur boxer while Shorting has martial arts training in Hapkido and Muay Thai kickboxing.

“The first thought in my mind is he’s a threat but let’s not escalate this situation,” said Meikle, who saw he had a knife. “Stay calm but be ready to make a move if need be.”

After attracting his attention away from the black male, Meikle ‘Spartan-kicked’ him in the chest and they wrestled for control of the knife and managed to hold him until police arrived to arrest the 23-year-old.

“I was taught by my grandmother and my elders that courage is stepping outside your comfort zone,” added Shorting. “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to protect its citizens.”

Thelma Krull remains found

More than three years after she went missing from her north Winnipeg home, the remains of Thelma Krull were finally found in late October.

On Oct. 27, a hunter stumbled upon a skull in a wooded area near Winnipeg. Forensic and DNA testing confirmed that the remains matched that of Krull.

Thelma Krull, 57, was reported missing on July 11, 2015. Her remains were found on Oct. 27. (SUPPLIED PHOTO)

Krull had been missing since she vanished after going for a walk on the morning July 11, 2015, in the Valley Gardens neighbourhood.

While the discovery brought a measure of closure to Krull’s family and friends, the search for her killer continues.

Police Sgt. Wes Rommel. Winnipeg Sun/Chris Procaylo

“We are not done,” police Sgt. Wes Rommel said at a press briefing in late November. “We still need the public’s assistance. With the recovery of Thelma, we now have a second location we believe will be a critical piece in connecting the suspect to the investigation.”

Armed and dangerous

In the two years since its purchase, the police Armoured Rescue Vehicle has sometimes faced criticism that it saw more service at community events than at crime scenes.

However, 2018 was an entirely different story. Within the span of a week, the ARV was called out for two separate armed standoffs including one where shots were fired at a police cruiser and the ARV.

The Winnipeg Police Service Tactical Support Team’s Armoured Rescue Vehicle (ARV1) is shown at Winnipeg police headquarters on Friday, Nov. 16. ARV1 and a marked police cruiser were hit by bullets during a 12-hour armed standoff in the 300 block of Bannerman Avenue on Wednesday, Nov. 7.GLEN DAWKINS/Winnipeg Sun/Postmedia Network /
SunMedia

In the first instance, numerous police units including the Tactical Support Team were kept at bay and a local school was forced into a “hold and secure” mode for more than 12 hours before the situation ended peacefully on Friday, Nov. 2 in the Gilbert Park housing complex in Shaughessy Park.

In the second, a 16-year-old was charged with manslaughter after exchanging shots with police during another 12-hour standoff on Bannerman Avenue. The armed standoff involved a wide-scale response that included over 100 officers and the activation of the service’s emergency operations centre and incident command response as well as deployment of the Tactical Support Team and its ARV.

Cheeseburglar strikes

A Winnipeg cheese shop offered free cheese for a year for anyone who could help identify their unwanted ‘cheeseburglar’, who busted through their back door in the early hours on Sept. 31.

In a security camera video posted to Facebook which went viral, a man dressed in white, a light-coloured cap and white sneakers could be seen rummaging through the kitchen and two of the store’s coolers at Fromagerie Bothwell on Provencher Boulevard, presumably looking for cash or something to steal. After a short time in the store, the man left empty-handed.

“I guess we didn’t have any of the varieties that he liked,” joked co-owner Jean-Marc Champagne.

A Winnipeg cheese shop is offering free cheese for a year for anyone who can identify their unwanted ‘cheeseburglar’. Fromagerie Bothwell on Provencher Boulevard had a break-in, said co-owner Jean-Marc Champagne. In a video posted to Facebook, a man dressed all in white, a light-coloured cap and white sneakers can be seen rummaging through the store’s kitchen, opening the fridge and drawers presumably looking for something.Fromagerie Bothwell

Placing a cheese “bounty” on the thief’s head earned the store a lot of notoriety, even though at the time Champagne wasn’t sure how they are going to arrange to pay out the year’s worth of cheese.

Reaction on social media to the reward varied from supportive to, well, cheesy.

“He’s clearly not a very Gouda human,” said one reply on Instagram. “It’s Nacho cheese, dude! It’s @fromageriebothwell’s. I’m sure you’re feeling blue about the break-in and I hope you start feeling feta soon. Brie Strong.”

Stunning discovery

Employees were stunned to find a body mixed in with recycling materials at the Cascades Recovery recycling depot in the Omands Creek Industrial area, shortly after 7 p.m., on Friday, Sept. 28 in one of the year’s 22 homicides.

Homicide investigators later identified the dead woman as 33-year-old Mary Madeline Yellowback, who also went by the last name of Ross. It was believed that she was transported from a secondary location, possibly in a recycling bin.

Several days later, police released surveillance photos from day before her body was discovered in hopes that someone would come forward, having seen her.

Surprise delivery

Two Winnipeg police officers got more than they bargained for when they came to the aid of a pregnant woman whose vehicle was stuck in traffic following a road closure near the Health Sciences Centre on the morning of Tuesday, May 15.

The officers were involved in the investigation of an early-morning shooting which closed Sherbrook Street for several hours when they were alerted that a couple in a vehicle were having a medical issue and the woman was in labour. Apparently, their child was not about to wait to get to the hospital.

“By the time (the officer) opened the door the baby was halfway out so she literally delivered while he was on the radio asking for an ambulance to come,” said police spokesperson Const. Tammy Skrabek.

Within minutes, the ambulance arrived and they were both transported safely to the hospital. Both mother and child were doing well, police said.

Skrabek said police officers are taught emergency first aid which prepares them for a number of situations that they may encounter on the street, even if the image of a police officer helping a woman give birth may sound like a cliche.

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